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John Daley Reporting A group of immigrants arrested in raids at a meat-packing plant in Cache County were in federal court in Salt Lake City today.
It was a busy day in court today as some of the people arrested in connection with last week's immigration raid in Cache County made their initial court appearance.
Thirteen-hundred people were arrested in six states in last week's Swift company raids, about 150 of them in Hyrum. One hundred and thirty-five of them are being charged in state court, many of them on forgery charges.
Here in federal court today 15 people made their initial court appearance, 14 of them on a variety of charges including using unlawfully obtained documents for employment, use of fake ID, and false use of social security numbers.
Prosecutors view two people as key figures. One is Veronica Carrillo who is from Mexico living in Logan. She's accused of being a document dealer and selling birth certificates and social security cards. Today, in Spanish, she pleaded not guilty.
John: You were saying that your client doesn't speak English?
Michael Jaenish, Attorney for Veronica Carrillo: As far as I know, she speaks no English.
John: What about the other defendant listed in the indictment?
Michael Jaenish: It's my understanding that he's, they're looking for him and that he may have gone back to Mexico. So that's all I can tell you about that."
Federal public defenders were assigned to represent the other defendants, but they declined to speak on camera.
These cases clearly illustrated the complexity of the issue many have children who were born in the US and thus are American citizens. Sandra Moreno-Candanedo, for example, owns a home here in Utah has been in the US for more than a decade, and has two children ages nine and seven who are citizens. She, and all the others, pleaded not guilty today.
